Cuba US People to People Partnership

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Personal thoughtsI was in Cuba just
before the self imposed lid came down. The official St. Patrick's Day Parade
and Celebration were canceled by the Cuban and Irish governments. However I was
lucky to enjoy on the day itself a program at the Provincial Library on the
Plaza de Armas, the original US embassy. An Irish Franciscan priest based in
Havana taught children some basic dance steps. He also talked about the
shamrock as an illustration of the Trinity. You can feel the spirit here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umtmbeR5AFU

There are lots of things to be angry about in the way the Trump
Administration has handled the corona virus crisis. Especially unconscionable
is their position on international sanctions, and in particular their
aggressiveness against Cuba and Venezuela. The sophistry that US sanctions do
not block medical supplies is itself not always true. But more important at a
time of profound world wide crisis, a common sense of humanity dictates that we
should suspend embargoes and other forms of punishment that damage daily life
for entire populations and undermine the ability of their governments to
purchase supplies and equipment to enhance normal existence. That does no
geopolitical harm as foreign investors are not going to initiate large scale
projects with the knowledge that sanctions are temporarily lifted for
humanitarian reasons.

For me the same moral logic applies to all
countries sanctioned unilaterally by the US. However, the most outrageous blows
have been directed at Cuba and Venezuela.

Anonymous trolls in the
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor @StateDRL tweeted nasty and
unwarranted attacks on Cuba's provision of medical teams to assist countries
afflicted by Covid 19.·

#Cuba
offers its international medical missions to those afflicted with #COVID
19 only to make up the money it lost when countries stopped participating in
the abusive program. Host countries seeking Cuba’s help for #COVID
19 should scrutinize agreements and end labor abuses.

The government of #Cuba keeps most
of the salary its doctors and nurses earn while serving in its international
medical missions while exposing them to egregious labor conditions. Host
countries seeking Cuba’s help for #COVID
19 should scrutinize agreements and end labor abuses.

Cuban
medical teams have been a long term target of Miami hard liners and their right
wing allies in US politics. Not only do the doctors and nurses earn good will
politically for Havana but their work has been a major source of national income
from countries that needed the aid and could afford to pay for it. Cubans
volunteer for assignments and in normal times receive economic and professional
benefit over counterparts at home. That the government which completely funded
their medical education receives compensation seems reasonable and analogous to
Americans who undertake lower paid military or public health service work in
return for our government paying for their education. There is no reason to
believe that Cuban government initiatives and participation in anti-Covid work
are any less motivated by compassionate feelings than U.S. government assistance
to afflicted countries.

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, I have often
wondered whether we or Cuban doctors received lower compensation. I was
particularly struck by the irony that while the U.S. government was criticizing
Cuban assistance, Washington had abruptly forced all PCVs to return to the US
and terminated their service with no regard for their host country role or
personal committment.

For whatever it is worth, this was my tweet to
Assistant Secretary Robert A. Destro

@DRL_AS Your department is disgraced by the tweet against Cuba sending
doctors to assist with corona virus at same time as Peace Corps withdrew and
terminated all volunteers. US looks small. For us to look large help people by
suspending all unilateral sanctions worldwide.

On a larger and
more dangerous scale was US exploitation of the Covid-19 crisis as a
justification for provocative military escalation in the Caribbean. Unexpectedly
on April 1 the first part of the widely watched daily White House press
conference on the virus was devoted to publicizing military patrols to combat
sea borne drug smuggling. It suspiciously followed by a few days a politically
motivated dubious indictment of President Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders on
drug smuggling charges. It was hard not to fear a parallel to the use of drug
related accusations against Manuel Noriega to justify the invasion of Panama
during the Reagan Administration.

Friday, April 3, 2020

International calls for easing sanctionsU.N. Calls for Rolling Back Sanctions to Battle PandemicSecretary-General Guterres says it’s time for “solidarity not exclusion.”

BY COLUM LYNCH | MARCH 24, 2020, 2:02 PM

United Nations leadership called for rolling back international sanctions regimes around the world, saying they are heightening the health risks for millions of people and weakening the global effort to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

The appeal reflects mounting concerns that sanctions regimes may be impeding efforts in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe to battle the coronavirus, and enhancing the prospects of the pathogen’s spread to other countries. It comes as China and Russia, which is subject to U.S. and European sanctions for its invasion of Crimea, have also stepped up calls for an easing of sanctions.

Pope Criticizes Sanctions

This is the first time the Pontiff has spoken out against the measures

On Sunday, Pope Francis spoke out against international sanctions during his Urbi et Orbi Easter address from Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

“This is not a time for forgetfulness (…) for division (…) or for indifference,” he reminded Catholics worldwide.

“In light of the present circumstances, may international sanctions be relaxed, since these make it difficult for countries on which they have been imposed to provide adequate support to their citizens,” the Pontiff continued, adding that he wishes to see “concrete and immediate solutions to be reached that can permit international assistance to a [Venezuelan] population suffering from the grave political, socio-economic and health situation.”

The first part of it focused on a military mobilization to stop cartels from using the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to send massive amounts of drugs to the US.

I wondered whether President Trump was attempting to use Covid-19 as cover for a Noriega style invasion of Venezuela. Or whether the Administration believes that a war would divert attention from the frightful domestic death toll of the virus.

The announced military mobilization is an odd response to purported cartel escalation (as though they aren't equally preoccupied and weakened by illness).

Part of the build up is the questionable well publicized indictment on drug charges of President Maduro et al and the phony political compromise Pompeo announced a couple of days earlier. It was advertised as an inducement for the military to finally turn against Maduro, but the proposed interim government would be a completely one-sided creation by the opposition.

It appears Pompeo and Abrams (and Claver-Carone?) are making the same mistake they have from the beginning, thinking that the Venezuelan military will accept a US sponsored regime.

If they pursue this course militarily, we will tragically discover that Venezuela is not Panama.

When I circulated a version of the above, two friends who know Washington and the security apparatus better than I responded to my analysis in this way:

1) "I think you’re right, except the idea of a boots-on-the-ground invasion. With COVID, no one’s going to enter that country. But some kind of stand-off military action is not beyond the pale for these people. The Trump people have tried, and failed, to effect three coups so far. Maybe number four will be the charm. With SouthCom sending ships down there, interference in oil shipments may be in the cards.
The indictment was, as you say, a complete fake."

2) "Just a repackaging of old one-sided ideas that are almost certain to fail as they have so far. I see virtually no chance these days of a US military invasion. I think it would backfire badly. However, these people are capable of almost anything, and they are clearly grasping for a way to turn a failed policy into something positive."

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

At 1:30 p.m. the parade will conclude at the Palacio Segundo Cabo on the Plaza de Armas. Ambassador Barbara Jones will speak and present a full set of uilleann pipes donated by Mick Moloney on behalf John Murphy to Rosalia Acosta Corrales of Pinar del Rio. This will be followed by a short concert of Irish traditional music and dance performed entirely by Cubans.

If there is sufficient interest, a program on the Irish and Irish American presence in Cuba will be offered from March 13 to 15 under the Support for the Cuban People license. Contact director@ffrd.org Background information tinyurl.com/irish2cuba

it becomes clear that they were certainly up to no good.
But that was what I was already hearing.

And I was also told by Amos and other colleagues that they
had some linkages, so I also want to, you know, get you to step back at this
period. This is, you know, March, April, into May, where we were having a
standoff over Venezuela . And
the Russians at this particular juncture were signaling very strongly that they
wanted to somehow make some very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and
Ukraine.

In other words, if we were going to exert some semblance of
the Monroe Doctrine of, you know, Russia keeping out of our backyard, because
this is after the Russians had sent in these hundred operatives essentially to
, you know , basically secure the Venezuelan Government and , you know , to
preempt what they were obviously taking to be some kind of U.S. military
action, they were basically signaling: You know, you have your Monroe doctrine. You want us out
of your backyard . Well , you know , we have our own version of this.

You're in our
backyard in Ukraine . And we were getting that sent to us , you know
, kind of informally through channels .

It was in the Russian press , various commentators .

And I was asked to go out to Russia in this timeframe to
basically tell the Russians to knock this off. I was given a special assignment
by the National Security Council with the agreement with the State Department
to get the Russians to back off.

So , in the course of my discussions with my colleagues, I
also found out that there were Ukrainian energy interests that had been in the
mix in Venezuelan energy sectors as well as the names again of Mr. Parnas and
Mr. Fruman, and this gentleman Harry Sargeant came up. And my colleagues said
these guys were notorious in Florida and that they were very bad news.

………………….

MR. ZELDIN: That's why I'm asking the
question.

So specifically with regards to the
first round of

questions, you stated something about
Venezuela and Russia.

Do you recall talking about some type of

DR. HILL: Yes. I said that the Russians
signaled,

including publicly through the press and
through press

articles that's the way that they
operate that they

were interested in they laid it out in
articles, I mean a

lot of them in Russian but, you know,
obviously, your

staff and Congressional Research Service
can find them for

you positing that, as the U.S. was so concerned
about the

Monroe Doctrine and
its own backyard, perhaps the U.S. might

also be then
concerned about developments in Russia's backyard as in Ukraine, making it very
obvious that they were trying to set up some kind of let's just say: You stay
out of Ukraine or you move out of Ukraine , you change your position on
Ukraine, and, you know, we'll rethink where we are with Venezuela.

And I said that I went to Moscow. It wasn't a classified
trip because I was going to meet with Russians.

And in the course of those discussions, it was also
apparent , including with a Russian think tank and other members, that the
Russian Government was interested in having a discussion about Venezuela and
Ukraine.

MR. ZELDIN: And just for my own knowledge then, so that's
something that it's all been publicly reported, everything's unclassified
there?

DR. HILL: It's been reported and that the Russians, the Russians
themselves made it very clear in unclassified public settings that they were
interested at some point in -- and, in fact , it was even reported in the press
that I had gone to Russia , by someone that asked a question of our State Department
officials in doing a press briefing: Had I gone to Russia at the time to make a
trade between Venezuela and Ukraine? It was asked as a question to Christopher
Robinson during a press briefing at the State Department.

MR. ZELDIN : Did you state earlier that there was a nexus
between Rudy Giuliani associates and Venezuela?

DR. HILL: I was told that by the directors working on the
Western Hemisphere. I didn't have a chance to look into this in any way. I was
told that the same individuals who had been indicted energy investments had
been interested at different points in energy investments in Venezuela and that
this was quite well-known.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

For the third year a four day festival will be held in Varadero in late August with some of Cuba's best jazz and son groups. (Click here for the 2019 program.) Below is information prepared for travel agents.If we receive enough interest from agents or independent travelers, FRD will organize meetings with performers and festival organizers. Prior to the festival we will visit the slavery museum in Matanzas, the history museum in Cardenas, the memorial to Cuba's largest slave rebellion and the museum at the sugar plantation home of the O'Farrill family. In Cardenas we will also learn about the social, educational, agricultural and economic programs of the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue.Americans who go to Cuba under the Support for the Cuban People license normally must stay in private bed and breakfasts, not in the State hotels listed below. Even if we are not able to organize a program, festival attendees will have ample opportunity for spontaneous engagement with Cuban fans.